AL 333

AL 333, commonly referred to as the "First Family", is a collection of prehistoric hominid teeth and bones. Discovered in 1975 by Donald Johanson's team in Hadar, Ethiopia, the "First Family" is estimated to be about 3.2 million years old, and consists of the remains of at least thirteen individuals of different ages. They are generally thought to be members of the species Australopithecus afarensis. There are multiple theories about the hominids’ cause of death and some debate over their species and sexual dimorphism.

In the late 1960s, the French paleoanthropologist Maurice Taieb started geological exploration of the relatively unexplored area of Ethiopia known as the Afar Triangle, located in the north of the country. Also known as the Danakil depression or Afar depression, this triangle is the lowest point in Ethiopia and one of the lowest in Africa. In 1972, Taieb invited Yves Coppens, a French paleontologist, Jon Kalb, an American geologist, and Donald Johanson, an American anthropologist, to survey the region in order to appraise the area’s field exploration potential. They soon settled on working in the Hadar Formation, a sedimentary geological formation within the region. The four men established the International Afar Research Expedition (IARE), with Johanson in charge of the paleoanthropology aspect of the expedition.

Historically, the Afar Triangle had been unexplored because it was remote and inhospitable. However, the IARE chose to explore the region for other reasons. The geological sequence of the Hadar Formation consists of nearly 200 meters of strata, or rock layers, which span a significant geological time. The sediment was also fossil-rich and often preserved partial skeletons of animals, implying that the researchers could potentially recover well-preserved and more complete fossils from the environment. Furthermore, the area had feldspars and volcanic glass that would be valuable for chronometric dating.

From 1973 to 1977, the IARE campaigns resulted in the discovery of about 250 hominid fossils. The most famous of the Hadar discoveries is Lucy, the most complete A. afarensis skeleton that has been discovered. However, in 1975, this same formation also witnessed the discovery of numerous remains from another site, AL 333. These remains became known as the “First Family,” and represent at least thirteen different individuals, both adults and children. The recovery of these 216 hominid specimens is unique in African paleoanthropology, since the close proximity of the different fossils suggests that these were individuals who might have lived in a group or been part of the same family.

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